Pleasure is Pain
by wingeddserpent
Summary: In the ruins of Oerba, Fang remembers. Spoilers for Final Fantasy XIII up to Chapter 11.


The ground beneath her feet crunches with each step; shattered crystal like sand grinding in protest of the sudden weight upon its formerly untouched glitter. Silence, except the shambling of Cie'th and the skittering of creatures she doesn't remember walking these streets and the solid familiar sound of the wind mills turning, turning as they always have.

She slings her lance across her back. The cool metal against her skin is familiar too. Behind her, she can feel their eyes on her, their steps on this dust hesitant. As if they think she might break with the weight of this.

"What happened?" Vanille asks, her voice more curious than sorrowful. She runs to stand in front of Fang, still smiling despite whatever it is they've come home to.

Fang gives a half-shrug, stopping to put a hand on her hip. "Let's go take a look, shall we?" But her gaze lifts from Vanille's face to the broken railroad. Great chunks of it fall into the sea that rises so much higher than she remembers. "Looks like it's been abandoned for…"

Only Snow has the courage to break the silence that follows, and asks, "Five hundred years?"

"Yeah," Fang says.

"Don't forget," Lightning unfolds herself, standing straighter and letting a hand drift down to her gunblade. A reminder—there are beasts everywhere now. "We're here to find a way to erase these, not to reminisce." With her other hand, she points at Snow's brand, the brand that's almost staring back at her, red like blood.

It's harsh—but coming from someone who abandoned her own crystallized sister, it's unsurprising. Sazh places a heavy hand on Vanille's shoulder, who smiles up at him, bright as ever.

Fang turns her back to them and everyone else. "Right. Let's split up then—we'll cover more ground."

"But what about the Cie'th?" Hope asks making her still.

"Scared?" Fang gives a soft laugh, one that's humorless even to her own ears, and then says, "Go with Light; she'll keep you nice and safe."

Silence greets her snappishness, and she's moving away—Lightning is right. They're running out of time, weeks becoming days that will dwindle to minutes then seconds. But, despite all that, her footsteps bring her to a familiar house, well, one that is more familiar than all the others.

Inside waits a Cie'th, it's huge and it fills the room that she used to sit in and laugh with Vanille and Nanaki and everyone then, the long nights would swiftly turn into morning and reveal empty bottles of liquor and cider scattered across the floor like marbles. And, in that early light of dawn, they'd still be playing cards, because Fang demanded a rematch every time she lost, and Vanille never wanted to do anything else.

With a fury that comes so easily these days, she slides her lance home. As the thing dies, all she can do is realize that all these Cie'th are where the people of Oerba are, listlessly wandering the same streets they had before their transformation.

Why?

Fang takes the stairs two at a time, putting away her spear. Cie'th don't just come from nowhere—they come from failed L'Cie. They come from people cursed. The people of Oerba are long gone and the place is infested with Cie'th. It isn't so hard to put two and two together.

But why?

Everything upstairs is how they left it. Vanille's extra pelt hangs on the chair by the bunks, Bhatki lays in the middle of the floor, sleeping, and—Fang's throat catches. The picture still stands there, dusted lightly with crystal sand but through it, she can see them—herself and Vanille.

Back then, they looked so young, though this was taken only a year before they became L'Cie. Fang peers closer, brushing the dust off with hands that shake.

Vanille's image looks back at her, bright and vivacious and her smile so carefree. There's none of that horror or that fear in her eyes and Fang realizes why they look so much older now.

They had been so young and free back then.

One of Vanille's necklaces sits next to the photo. Vanille had loved to sit before that picture in the morning and put her jewelry on—"It reminds me of what I have to look forward to in the day," she had said with that toothy smile of hers. And, every time, she'd look pointedly at Fang's image, standing in the back, aloof but smiling, almost innocent but utterly wild.

Back then, Fang knew how to blush.

Fang runs her fingers over the beads, dust making them rough where she remembers smoothness; the feeling she has whenever she touches Vanille. Her throat convulses when she swallows.

Abruptly, she turns away, shoulders slumped and eyes downcast. It's only because of that sudden movement she even notices the broken comb in the corner of the room. Fang shakes her head, once, because it can't be what she thinks it is. It can't be, she refuses to believe it is.

Reassured, she moves to it and kneels to pick up the now toothless comb carved by Vanille's careful but eager hands so long ago from the bone of the first adamantoise Fang had helped slay.

It had been Nanaki's thank you gift and after receiving it, he'd never taken it off.

She blinks hard. And then she sits on the dust-covered floor. Fang grits her teeth against the threat of tears. There isn't time for grief. There isn't time to reminisce about the old family—not when her new one will meet the same fate if she doesn't do something. Despite the image of Snow's L'Cie mark staring back at her burned fresh in her mind, she remembers—

_"Nanaki?" Fang asked, holding up a spear twice her size, "May I come with you?"_

"It will be perilous. The adamantoise is a fierce foe," he said, cocking his head to gaze at her through his golden eye. __

She brought herself up to full-height, tall for a seven-year-old, and proudly said, "I'm ready." __

Solemnly, he nodded. It was to his credit that not only did he keep her alive and unharmed, he also managed to slay the beast.

Fang shakes her head again, to clear it, and stands, tucking the broken comb into a fold in her sari. "Well, Bhakti, after all this, you're going to show me what happened. I know you recorded it," she says, softly. In the old days, Bhakti's camcorder had been an object of joy, now, she thinks, it'll be one of despair.

He doesn't beep but that's unsurprising—he'd never liked her much. Jealous, probably, that Vanille liked Fang best.

A crooked smile curves her mouth.

_Fang laid her head on Nanaki's soft back, looking up at the clouds with a pensive expression, something uncommon for the seventeen-year-old who was always moving. Nanaki glanced back at her, pink tongue lolling out of his mouth in the heat of the day._

"You seem to be thinking hard." __

"Yeah," she said, her lips twisting into a frown. "Hey, Red. You're a guardian of the Village. How do you know you're strong enough to protect your family?" __

At the hated nickname, Nanaki bared his teeth, but then smoothed his face into a more thoughtful expression. "I know I have the strength because I must have it. I have to be willing to do anything for my family." __

"Anything...?" she trailed into silence and tangled her finger in his long mane, braided with care by Vanille's lithe hands. __

"What has you so troubled?" he asked, butting her shoulder with his head. "You normally would be on your way by now." __

She stood up, pacing distractedly, then glanced up at the orb in the sky. The viper's nest. "We've seen more and more of their ships. I need to be stronger or I can't _—"_

"You are afraid," he cut her off. "Strength will not eradicate fear." __

"I'm not afraid! I'm not. Ever. I just... if I'm not strong enough I can't save them." Fang twisted to look back at him, expression hard like her spear. __

Slowly, he padded over and butted her hip with his head. "Rely on the strength of others, then. You aren't alone."

Maybe it was true once. But now—she glances down at the brand on her arm. It's frozen, messed up, crystallized. If she's not strong enough, her new family will turn into Cie'th while she watches and stays human. Loneliness will be a fate she alone shares.

Unless they can destroy Cocoon or get rid of these damn marks.

With renewed purpose, she takes the stairs back down two at a time and jumps over the last four. At the base of the stairs, the others blink at her over the body of another Cie'th. "Find anything?" Vanille asks after a moment.

"Bhakti," she says and thinks briefly about telling Vanille about the comb, but decides against it.

However, sharp as her gunblade and insistent as always, Lightning asks, "What else did you find?"

Fang snaps her gaze over to meet Lightning's eye. "This," she says and tosses the comb to Lightning. "Let me guess? You didn't find anything either."

"What is it?" Lightning asks, running her fingers over the broken comb without care.

Fang glances over at where Vanille was, but, of course, she's already run upstairs to find her beloved robot. Maybe she doesn't like Fang best, after all. "It's a comb made of adamantoise bone. Probably sell for quite a bit."

"It's broken," Snow says, with a slight frown, "How much could it be worth?"

"You'd be surprised—it's not easy to break adamantoise bone." Fang turns away from them to look at the Cie'th lying dead on the floor of what was once her home.

Footsteps, and then Sazh's gloved hand rests on her shoulder, a comfort from a man who was once a father. "Who'd it belong to?"

Her own father died when she was four. The only thing she remembers of him is a crooked grin she sees every time she looks in the mirror and a pair of boots similar to her own. Honestly though? If she had ever gotten to know him, she hopes he would have been a father as good as Sazh is. But maybe less intuitive, because damn, how can he figure her out so easily? "Someone who's long gone. Look, we've got to keep moving or else you're going to..." she stops and turns back to face them, tearing herself from Sazh's comfort.

All three of them—Hope had run after Vanille—watch her cautiously. As though they think she might break.

Don't they know? So long as she needs strength, she'll never break.

"I'm sorry," she says, soft, and then brushes past them, leaving the comb in Lightning's impersonal touch.

Don't they know everything is her fault?

_"Fang!" Nanaki bared his teeth at her, "Rethink this!"_

"I'm done thinking and cowering in corners," she yanked her spear out and held it between him and herself. __

He shook his head, fur standing on end with fury. "You think anyone will thank you for this? The Village needs you alive and human!" __

"If I can last long enough to keep our Village safe," she said, backing up, closer to her goal. "then eternal damnation as a Cie'th will be worth it. We're losing, damn it. Soon, Oerba's gonna be gone. We're not strong enough." __

"What about Vanille?" he asked finally, desperate, edging nearer but hanging back still, away from the points of her lance. __

Fang growled; her hands tightened on her spear. "I can't let her die." __

"So you'll condemn her to loneliness?" he asked, taking a step nearer. "Even if you complete your Focus and save the Village... you'll be a crystal. What will she do then?" __

"She'll have the Village. She'll move on!" She slashed at him with her lance, watching with narrowed eyes as he danced out of the way of its edge. __

Nanaki sighed and stepped back, sitting on his haunches, finally realizing. "It is your choice. But think hard, Oerba Yun Fang, are you sure that becoming a L'Cie will give you what you want?" __

"I need the power," she said, swallowing, "Or Cocoon is going to overrun us. I'm gonna do it." _  
_  
With a sardonic grin stretched across her mouth, Lightning calls after her, "Feel better?"

"Not really," Fang calls back, watching her old family shamble across the street as monsters and gives a shudder that shakes her to the core.

Is this the fate her new family is condemned to? Will they, too, be nothing but a memory, to be remembered when she closes her eyes and sees happier days? Is any happiness she finds destined to make her unhappy later?

She can remember laughing and playing and running and killing with Nanaki, helping him play cards because he had no thumbs and she hated when he held the cards in his mouth. She can remember braiding his mane and lacing chocobo feathers in it. She can remember lying curled up next to him, his warmth negating the need for a blanket even on the coldest nights.

Once, the memories would have brought a smile, a fond gleam in her eye. But now all she can think of is that broken comb in Lightning's hand and the fact that, maybe, he was right all along.

Becoming a L'Cie never made her any less scared. It only served to strengthen her fears.


End file.
